Department of Informatics and Media
Master Programme in Social Sciences, Digital Media and Society
Two-year Master’s Thesis
Did Huawei Fail in the Crisis?
Case studies of Crisis Communication for Chinese Multinational Enterprise on Social Media
Student: Jiashu Han
Supervisor: Kerstin Engström
Abstract
This study analyzes crisis communication strategy of a Chinese multinational technology enterprise on social media and tests the effectiveness of the crisis response. This study conducts quantitative analysis on two social media crises experienced by Huawei
Technologies Co. Ltd in 2017. The analysis uses Situation Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) as the theoretical framework, and proposes advices of crisis management for multinational technology enterprises in emerging countries represented by Huawei. The results show that when multinational technology enterprises face crisis, it is necessary to analyze the situation of crisis in a rational and localized way according to different social and cultural context, and adopt appropriate crisis communication strategies. While dealing with a complex cultural environment, avoiding cultural conflicts is an effective choice.
Keywords: Huawei, social media, multinational technology company, crisis communication strategy, cultural context (22066 words)
Acknowledgement
First, I would give my greatest gratitude to my parents, who gave me tremendous supports from financial and mental aspects. It was my parents' efforts and help which makes me keep learning for two years. Fortunately, when I feel helpless and lost, I still have their embrace.
I would also like to appreciate Mr. Anders Wall, who gave me a scholarship during my two- year study, and Anders Wall Foundation which established this scholarship program. Thank them for giving me an opportunity to come to Sweden and have a special life experience.
I would also like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Kerstin Engström in the
Department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University for her guidance. The evaluation and feedback from her gave me great help during the selection of the topic and the thesis writing.
I would thank the examiner of my thesis, PG Holmlöv in the Department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University. His valuable opinions and revise ideas guided me to improve my thesis and avoid making academic mistakes.
Special thanks will be given to Lin Zhang in Peking University. I would like to thank her for her companion, love, encouragement, and academic advices to me during the semester of my thesis writing in Beijing, especially when I wanted to give up.
I would thank my former classmate at Uppsala University, Yijun Ding. The researches we completed a year ago has greatly inspired and helped my thesis research. I would also thank Chloe Yao in the Huawei Research Institute of Hangzhou for providing me with basic information about Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Finally, I would like to thank all the lecturers and classmates in the Master program of Digital Media and Society for their help in the two years of study. I am also grateful to my friends who once helped me in Sweden.
Table of Content
Abstract ……… 2
Acknowledgement ……… 3
Table of Content ……… 4
List of Figures and Tables ……… 6
1. Introduction ……… 7
1.1 Significance of this study ……… 7
1.2 Research question ……… 8
1.3 Contribution to the field ……… 9
2. Background ……… 9
3. Existing Research ……… 13
3.1 The origin of crisis communication theory ……… 13
3.1.1 Image restoration theory (IRT) ……… 13
3.1.2 Situation crisis communication theory (SCCT) ……… 15
3.1.3 Corporate crisis advertising (CCA) ……… 19
3.1.4 Other researches about crisis strategy ……… 20
3.2 Social Media used in crisis communication ……… 23
3.2.1 Social-mediated crisis communication (SMCC) Model ……… 23
3.2.2 Crisis communication researches about social media ……… 24
3.3 Cross-cultural crisis communication research ……… 27
3.4 Review of crisis communication research ……… 29
3.5 Research on Chinese technology enterprises represented by Huawei ……… 32
4. Theoretical Framework ……… 33
4.1 Crisis communication theoretical system ……… 34
4.2 SCCT used in case study ……… 37
4.3 CCA framework ……… 40
4.4 Framework for Huawei’s study ……… 42
5. Theoretical Developed Research Questions ……… 43
6. Methodology ……… 45
6.1 Content analysis and textual analysis ……… 46
6.2 Research on Twitter and Weibo ……… 47
6.3 Coding ……… 49
7. Ethics ……… 51
8. Case Study 1: Huawei P10’s Flash Memory Crisis ……… 51
8.1 Stages of crisis ……… 51
8.2 Statistical result ……… 56
8.3 Hypothesis test ……… 59
9. Case Study 2: Controversy of Huawei Mate 10 Pro Advertisement ……… 61
9.1 Stage of crisis ……… 62
9.2 Line chart analysis ……… 65
9.3 Hypothesis Test ……… 67
10. Analysis and Discussion ……… 68
10.1 Analysis of Huawei’s crisis management process during two cases ……… 69
10.2 Crisis communication strategy effected by cultural factors ……… 71
10.3 Research questions revise ……… 74
10.4 Limitation and future research ……… 75
11. Reference ……… 76
List of Figures
Figure 2.1 Worldwide smartphone company market share ……… 10
Figure 2.2 Test results of Huawei P10 with three different flash memory ……… 11
Figure 3.1 Statistic of research topics of this literature review ……… 30
Figure 3.2 Statistic of theories of this literature review ……… 31
Figure 3.3 Statistic of research methods of this literature review ……… 31
Figure 4.1 Crisis situation model ……… 38
Figure 4.2 Model of consumer evaluation to corporate advertising ……… 41
Figure 4.3 The CCA Framework ……… 42
Figure 4.4 Theoretical framework of this article ……… 42
Figure 8.1 Analysis of cognitive response percentage across time on Twitter ……… 56
Figure 8.2 Analysis of affective response percentage across time on Twitter ………… 57
Figure 8.3 Analysis of cognitive response percentage across time on Weibo ………… 58
Figure 8.4 Analysis of affective response percentage across time on Weibo ………… 58
Figure 9.1 Huawei Mate 10 Pro’s Controversial Advertisement in China ……… 61
Figure 9.2 Analysis of cognitive response percentage across time for case study 2 …65 Figure 9.3 Analysis of affective response percentage across time for case study 2 …66 List of Tables Table 4.1 SCCT crisis response and reputation repair strategies ……… 36
Table 4.2 SCCT crisis types by crisis clusters ……… 39
Table 4.3 SCCT crisis response strategy guidelines ……… 40
Table 8.1 Sample tweets of Huawei on Twitter during case study 1 ……… 52
Table 8.2 Sample posts of Huawei on Weibo during case study 1 ……… 52
Table 8.3 Independent Samples T-test for Hypothesis Test 1 & 2 ……… 60
Table 8.4 Independent Samples T-test for Hypothesis Test 3 & 4 ……… 61
Table 9.1 Sample posts of Huawei on Weibo during case study 2 ……… 63
Table 9.2 Independent Samples T-test for Hypothesis Test 5 & 6 ……… 68
1. Introduction
1.1. Significance of this study
As smart devices and wireless Internet has become an integral part of modern human life for decades, multinational technology companies which represent the information
technology industry are leaders of today's capital markets, while influencing a large number of users from all over the world. The products and advances of technology companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft already have potential to make world-wide impact. At the same time, when multinational technology companies are in crisis, they will be seriously affected. For example, the explosion of Galaxy Note 7 that hit South Korea's tech company Samsung in 2016 still affects their potential customers’ confidence in the competitive smartphone market. Therefore, research on the crisis communication strategy of multinational technology companies can provide reference and help for these large enterprises as well as emerging enterprises with potential to enter the global market.
Approach within this field will also contribute to the development of strategic communication theory, because few studies has combine crisis communication with cultural issues.
Crisis communication is the life blood of crisis management (Coombs, 2007b).
Mature enterprises and organizations usually have set up special departments to deal with crises. However, in many cases cited by researchers, not all crises have been effectively dealt with. Diers-Lawson (2017) argues that organizational crises often have cultural factors, and crisis communication in cross-cultural settings still lacks attention in research. Moreover, research on crisis communication is still around the context of the United States (Diers-Lawson, 2017). Hence, there is a lack of focus on the concept of
"intercultural" in this field. From the perspective of enterprises from emerging markets and developing countries, crisis communication research is still in its infancy. When companies from these countries meet with crises in global markets, they tend to be more prone to make mistakes because of a lack of understanding of a particular cultural environment. Therefore, this thesis chooses Huawei Technology Co. Ltd., a famous Chinese information technology company, as the main case to pay attention to the crisis communication strategy of multinational technology enterprises from developed
countries and emerging developing countries in Asia. At the same time, I also investigate
several other Asian technology companies as a comparison, in order to develop a practical approach to intercultural crisis communication strategy.
From the media perspective, the importance of social media has totally increased during the past decade. Social media is as important as the traditional mass media for crisis management. Due to the ability of social media users to generate content, impact on organizations will be magnified by a convenient information network if the organization fails to properly handle the crisis (Bratu, 2016). Therefore, the research on crisis
communication strategy of technology enterprises in social media has met the needs of the era. This research focuses on social media platforms, including how businesses handle and respond to crises on social media, and social media users’ feedback to crises and organization’s response.
1.2. Research question
Huawei is chosen as the case study of social media crisis communication, which aims to provide theoretical contribution on crisis strategies in intercultural environment for multinational technology companies from emerging countries, especially China. My proposed research question is how Huawei can conduct effective crisis communication strategies for reputation management in an era of social media which is intercultural and highly competitive. Concretely, this research will discover if Huawei adopted proper and successful crisis communication strategy during the cases (Research Question 1), and how Huawei considered cultural factors in their crisis communication for the cases (Research Question 2).
Huawei is in line with the characteristics of new multinational technology companies lacking in crisis management experience. Although the Chinese
telecommunications company has been in existence for more than 30 years, it has not been long since it became the world’s leading telecommunications equipment supporter.
This company with strong Chinese characteristics often falls into controversy while suffering crises in multicultural environments. For Huawei, I choose two social media PR crises that took place in 2017, which will be concretely introduced in the next chapter. I use Coombs’ (2007a, 2007b, 2007c) situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) to analyze Huawei's performance throughout the crises. I also selected several
representative social media platforms to conduct content analysis and text analysis in order to code and explain public feedback during the crisis, and understand the effectiveness and weakness of Huawei's communication strategy in all stages of the crisis.
1.3. Contribution to the field
In the field of strategic communication, a large amount of research focuses on crisis management. Fink (1986) developed the earliest four-stage model of crisis. He used a metaphor of illness to describe the life circle of a crisis. Mitroff (1994) illustrated five phases of crises. Based on Fink’s theory, Mitroff emphasized crisis detection and crisis prevention. Coombs (2007a) proposed situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) model that provided the framework for the current crisis communication research.
Coombs (2007b) also create a three-stage model of crisis with pre-crisis, crisis event, and post-crisis. He divided crisis into disaster and organizational crisis, which lead
researchers to think crisis from different perspective.
Based on Coombs' theory, I divide the crisis events encountered by Huawei into different stages and analyze the situation and their strategy of each stage. Compared with the prosperity of crisis management theory, the research on intercultural communication in the field of crisis studies is still in its infancy. Hence, this thesis can provide new findings for crisis communication research from the perspective of intercultural communication.
2. Background
Because of their own influence, the crisis associated with large enterprises often has a huge effect in society. This study selected Chinese technology company, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., as the research object. It has a huge influence in the global business field of device equipment in the 21st century. Their mobile devices and services are also widely present in our lives today.
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. was established in Shenzhen, China in 1988. The Founder, Ren Zhengfei, was a Chinese soldier before Huawei was founded. Chinese economic reform in the 1980s gave this company an opportunity to flourish in Shenzhen.
Their primary work was to import foreign technology and assemble telephone switch products for the Chinese domestic market (Hawes & Chew, 2011). Over the past decades, Huawei has become the leading firm of wireless telecommunication equipment. As the data of market share in 2017 shows, Huawei has also hold the third position in global smartphone behind Apple and Samsung (Figure 2.1). In the field of wireless equipment, Huawei is also competing with multinational enterprises such as Cisco and Ericsson in over 100 countries’ markets around the world.
Figure 2.1 Worldwide smartphone company market share (IDC, 2018) With the rapid expanding from Asia to the world, Huawei also encountered many negative events and blocking from competitors. As early as 2013, Huawei's background was questioned by the media. Since Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei served in the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the rapid rise of Huawei is considered to be the result of support from the Chinese government and the military. Therefore, the information security of Huawei's communications equipment has been questioned and accused in many countries led by the United States. According to the report of “The Guardian”, the British government’s senior security department conducted an investigation on Huawei's information security center in the United Kingdom in 2013 regarding the relationship between Huawei and the Chinese government. This had been reported to the British Parliament. In the past, the British information security department doubted that
Huawei’s communications equipment could be used by the Chinese government to monitor the United Kingdom (The Guardian, 2013). The U.S. government is still skeptical about the "secret" connection between the Chinese communications company represented by Huawei and the Chinese government (Liptak, 2018). Until now, only Huawei's smartphones can be sold in the United States. Even so, some operators, such as Verizon, have stated that they will not sell Huawei smartphones because of pressure from the US government (Liao, 2018). The question of cybersecurity has also attracted the attention of consumers on social media. However, Huawei has never responded to these questions or attacks by its own social media accounts. Compared to the question of information security, Huawei is more likely to face the public crisis directly in the broader consumer market.
Huawei's products have made great achievements in the global market share.
However, feedback from consumers for Huawei's products is not just praise. In 2017, Huawei’s flagship smartphone product, Huawei P10, faced a serious crisis. In April 2017, Huawei released this flagship handset. Netizens on Chinese social media Weibo reflected that Huawei used different batches of flash memory on P10, because of its low speed from read and write tests by Androbench benchmark test (Figure 2.2). Users suspected that three different specifications of flash memories, eMMC 5.1, UFS 2.0 and UFS 2.1, were mixed to be used on P10 (Onawole, 2017). This was different from P10’s
advertisement posted around the world, which showed that all P10 products had the fastest UFS 2.1 flash memory.
Figure 2.2 Test results of Huawei P10 with three different flash memory (Onawole, 2017)
Later, a technology website called Phone Arena also questioned that the RAM element of P10 was also mixed from LPDDR3 and LPDDR4 standards. Consumers began to realize the seriousness of the issue and questioned Huawei under online news, forums, and social media. Compared with global social media, this negative event was discussed much more in the Chinese Internet. Therefore, in this research, one of our concerns is Huawei’s selection of response strategies for different markets in the same crisis event.
Another case of Huawei's crisis is about its advertising in China. In November 2017, while Huawei was posting advertisements of their new smartphone, Huawei Mate 10 Pro, an online advertising design was considered as a special concern for Muslim ethnic minorities in China. A new internal function of “One-click Seeking the nearest Mosque"
appeared on their Chinese advertisements. This triggered an aversion among Chinese nationalists and atheists. Immediately afterwards, Huawei issued a strong-worded response on the Chinese social network, which was accused of not respecting Chinese mainstream culture. The response detonated the negative sentiments of the public for the second time.
In fact, due to China’s unfair ethnic policies and unbalanced economic development, the contradiction between China’s domestic Muslims and the dominant Han people has intensified in recent years. The preference in terms of policies and laws for Chinese Muslims living in poverty-stricken areas of western China has inspired the rise of Han nationalism in China. Therefore, after Huawei's mobile advertising added the element of special function for Muslim, a protest triggered by Han nationalism and Islamophobia began to impact Huawei. The lack of consideration of complex political and cultural environments has make Huawei’s promotion highly controversial in China. Although we are not able to judge whether this nationalist protest is correct or reasonable, we still cannot ignore the losses suffered by Huawei in this public relations crisis. For a
technology company’s advertising campaign, how to balance the gaining benefits and the demands for minorities to achieve corporate social responsibility? This is also a subject discussed in my research.
3. Existing Research
3.1 The origin of crisis communication theory
Strategic communication is the purposeful behavior of communicators. An outcome objective is the basis for organizing public relations activities (Coombs & Holladay, 2010). In the field of crisis communication, the earliest objective of the organization was to resolve issues. The concept of issue management appeared around late 1970’s. The earliest classic issue model was proposed by Jones and Chase (1979). The development and resolution of Issue is presented as a cycle. The five stages of the issue model were issue identification, issue analysis, issue change strategy option, issue action program, and evaluation. At that time, the definition of issue had not yet been theoretically
developed. In 1984, Chase posted the book (Howard Chase: Issue Management - Origins of the Future) to introduce issue management separately (Jaques, 2007). Two years later, as mentioned before, the four-stage crisis model proposed by Fink (1986) constructed the earliest theoretical basis for crisis communication.
3.1.1 Image restoration theory (IRT)
Several years later, Benoit's (1997) image restoration theory provided a series of
strategies for the organization’s crisis situation. Based on apology theory and attribution theory, Benoit (1997) pointed out that when an organization is responsible for an
allegation of a negative event and perceives its own responsibility, the organization needs to choose the following coping strategies to repair the damage to the organizational image: denial, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, corrective action and mortification. This theory can usually be used when the organization's response strategy fails and triggers further crisis.
Benoit (1997) divides denial into two cases: simple denial means that the organization does not declare the incident, and shifting the blame is to accuse other people or organizations for being involved in the incident to get rid of the organization’s own accusations and to deny their responsibility in the incident. The premise of evading responsibility is that the organization acknowledged the occurrence of the offensive action but refused to investigate the responsibility. Reducing offensiveness further acknowledged the incident, but claimed that the act was not offensive at the same time.
Benoit (1997) specifically proposes six tactics for reducing offensiveness: bolstering, minimization, differentiation, transcendence, attacking the accuser, and comprehension (sorted by Compton, 2016). Corrective action is a more active repair effort for behavior actors. This means that this organization promises to solve the problem, or correct the negative consequences of organizational behavior in some way. Finally, mortification is a statement of regret for inappropriate behavior.
Image restoration theory has been widely recognized since it was proposed. This is also one of the important foundations for the development of crisis communication theory in the 21st century. However, researchers in recent years pointed out the deficiency of image restoration theory. In social media research, this theory is sometimes not suitable because digital media was not yet popular at the end of the 20th century (Liu &
Fraustino, 2014). Researchers believe that social media image repairing generates new management issues. When strategies used by traditional media is replicated by social media crisis, these social media strategies can be less effective in repairing images (Liu &
Kim, 2011, cited by Liu & Fraustino, 2014).
Image restoration theory is widely used in case studies as a theoretical framework.
Arendt, LaFleche, & Limperopulos (2017) examined the apology theory, image restoration theory, and crisis communication literature through a qualitative meta- analysis. Arendt et al. analyzed 30 years of research literature on image restoration theories to identify themes or patterns of strategies for organization and individual who faces crises or reputational threats. This analysis found that corrective action is the most successful and common strategy, especially when used in conjunction with other
strategies, such as reducing the offensiveness or bolstering. On the contrary, denial is the most unsuccessful strategy, especially when evading responsibility or reducing offense.
However, denial is the most commonly used strategy. In addition, guilt or innocence, remaining silent, potential legal actions, the scope of the crisis, and timely response can all be factors that determine the success or failure of image restoration.
Compton’s (2016) study has expanded image repair theory. His research chose a specific situation where the organization regrets the “apology” that has been published.
Another focused situation is that the organization intends to withdraw an apology.
Compton chose different cases in politics and entertainment to enrich the meaning of
image analysis theory. By apologizing for an inappropriate apology, organizations can minimize the damage to their reputation and image. This is a further image repair effort.
However, this action may be questioned because the withdrawing of apologies is the reflection of the lack of sincerity. However, sincerity is a significant component of apologizing (Souder, 2010, cited by Compton, 2016).
3.1.2 Situation crisis communication theory (SCCT)
Crisis is defined as a threat to operations, which can damage the organization, its
stakeholders, and even an industry in a result of financial, and reputation loss by Coombs (2007a). Since Image restoration theory gave advices for post-crisis stage, Coombs created an evidence-based framework of crisis communication guidance, especially for maximizing reputational protection for organizations (Coombs, 2007a), which was Situation Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT). SCCT first identified three factors that affect the organizational reputation threat in different crisis situations: initial crisis responsibility, crisis history, and prior relational reputation. Different from previous theories, SCCT pays more attention to the history of the organization’s response to the crisis and the prior reputation of the organization, because these factors will affect how the organization chooses the proper strategy for crisis situations.
SCCT is informed by Attribution Theory, which concerns motivation of organizational action. Depending on attribution, Coombs divided crises into three clusters. The first is the victim crises. When the crisis is caused by natural disasters, workplace violence, rumor or product tampering, the organization is regarded as a victim of this event, and the organization has very weak crisis responsibility. The second cluster is the accidental crises. These crises are usually caused by technical-error accidents which is considered “unintentional or uncontrollable” by the organization. The third cluster is for preventable and intentional crises which is strongly attributed to the organization. Within this cluster, crises are viewed as purposeful (Coombs & Holladay, 2002). Crisis can be caused by human-error, accidental human-error and organizational misdeed.
In addition to the responsibilities and attributions of the crisis itself, crisis history and prior relational reputation were also considered by Coombs (2007a) as factors that
organizations need to consider. They have a direct or indirect impact on the reputational threat from crisis. In particular, when the organization has an unfavorable priority relational reputation, they may be less concerned with stakeholders' ideas when dealing with crises. The SCCT pointed out that before the organization solves the crisis, it needs to go through the following two steps: (1) determine the crisis responsibility, (2) analyze the crisis history and prior reputation, and then enter the stage of crisis response strategy selection.
In general, SCCT introduces several breakthrough concepts based on Image
Restoration Theory. SCCT emphasizes the attribution of crisis responsibility because the identification of crisis responsibility determines what strategy should be adopted to deal with the crisis. SCCT also introduced the concept of stakeholders. SCCT dictates that organizations must first protect their stakeholders by providing instructing and adjusting information for psychological coping (Liu & Fraustino, 2014). The premise of SCCT is to protect stakeholders. If this premise is satisfied, the organization will repair its own reputation. This makes the organization targeted in adopting response strategies at different stages of the crisis. SCCT also highlights the history of the crisis, which makes it necessary for organizations in crisis to comprehensively consider multiple crises.
The earliest SCCT came from the marketing research that Coombs began in 1995.
Since then, Coombs has associated crisis response strategies with crisis situations.
Coombs & Holladay (2002) developed and expanded SCCT with the help of quantitative research methods. This study attempts to systematically elaborate and test SCCT for the first time. Coombs & Holladay explores one of the basic assumptions of SCCT by assessing whether the predicted correlational relationship between crisis responsibility and organizational reputation occurs a series of crisis types (Coombs & Holladay, 2002).
A few years later, Coombs (2006) further explored response strategies established in SCCT for various crisis situations. In this research, researchers introduced the concept of stakeholders into the analysis of crisis situations and established the importance of examining stakeholders’ perception. Under the premise that crisis response strategies and crisis situations should be matched, SCCT needs to understand the importance of
stakeholders' perception of crisis response strategies. As perceptions of crisis
responsibility and reputational damage increase, the crisis managers should use crisis
response strategies that shoulder greater responsibility and try to repair legitimacy by helping crisis victims (Coombs & Holladay, 2002). This study used interviews to seek information from respondents about the extent to which the organization was responsible for the crisis and how important the organization was to help victims of the crisis. Based on previous research, the crisis response strategies were divided into three clusters: deny, diminish, and deal. The results indicated that respondents did recognized that the crisis response strategies were intended in terms of crisis responsibility and aiding the victim (Coombs, 2006). The study also showed that when the organization does not properly assess its own responsibility for the crisis and take inappropriate measures as the response, the organization will be at great risks.
In 2007, Coombs developed a set of evidence-based crisis communication guidelines with the help of SCCT. In this study, Coombs raised three important factors that I have mentioned above: attribution of crisis responsibility, crisis history, and organizational prior reputation. These factors are used to predict how stakeholders think of the crisis and how they react to the crisis (Coombs, 2007a). Resolving the physiological and
psychological needs of stakeholders is a priority task for crisis management. After addressing the needs of stakeholders, crisis managers should turn to other needs, such as the reputation of the organization. These stakeholder's views on the crisis also indicate which crisis response strategy is most effective in protecting the organizational
reputation. SCCT has determined how crisis response strategies will influence stakeholder perceptions and the impact on reputational assets. Because reputation determines the way in which stakeholders interact with the organization, protecting the organization's reputation can also produce behavioral benefits (Coombs, 2007a).
Subsequently, Coombs & Holladay (2009) examined the relationship between crisis response strategies and media channels by experiments. In previous studies, the medium for crisis communication research was usually print media. Coombs and Holladay designed an experiment to assess the impact of different response strategies and media channels on crisis-affected respondents through a 2*2 MANOVA approach. Results revealed that there was no meaningful difference between the use of video versus print or sympathy versus compensation (Coombs & Holladay, 2009). Later, Coombs (2015) raised the value of crisis communication research to the entire strategic communication
field. Researchers analyzed the crisis response strategy and its expected results,
reasonable crisis response opportunities, and situational factors that have been shown to affect the effectiveness of crisis response strategies (Coombs, 2015). This system has also become an important part of my theoretical framework for this research.
Claeys, Cauberghe, & Vyncke (2010) made an important evidence-based
contribution to SCCT. In order to measure the impact of crisis types and crisis response strategies on corporate reputation, researchers invited 316 consumers to participate in a 3 (crisis type: victim crisis, accidental crisis, preventable crisis) × 3 (crisis response: deny strategy, diminish strategy, rebuild strategy) between-subject experimental design. Their experimental results show that preventable crisis has the greatest negative impact on organizational reputation. Rebuild strategy leads to the most positive reputation recovery.
In addition, public judgment on the severity of the crisis can affect the reputation of the organization. The more people think about the crisis that the organization is facing, the more negative they are about the reputation of the organization (Claeys et al., 2010). This article also discovers the impact of locus of control as a personality trait on the effect of crisis response strategy on reputation. For the deny strategy, respondents with an external locus of control perceive the corporate reputation more positively than respondents with an internal locus of control. However, respondents with an external locus of control do not prefer the use of rebuild strategies less than those with an internal locus of control (Claeys et al., 2010).
Park (2017) discusses crisis response strategies and the relationship with corporate social responsibility (CSR) based on SCCT. The researchers also used between-subject experimental design with 301 participants. Results of this experiment show that base responses (instructing and adjusting information) could limit reputational decline for a company during a severe, preventable crisis. The sole use of bolstering (reminding) strategy or no response is ineffective because it declines consumers’ trust in the company, attitudes toward the company, perceived corporate reputation, and supportive behavioral intentions (Park, 2017). Another research on public perceptions of controversial online comments and emotional and behavioral responses is also performed with a 2*2 experiment. Roh (2017) extends SCCT by testing cognitive models. The study indicate that the expectations of different participants will lead to different degrees of
responsibility judgments of the crisis. Denial crisis response can effectively reduce blame and eliminate negative emotional reactions while reducing the credibility of information sources. But when the organization’s response fails to meet the expectations of the
participants, participants will engage in a “counterfactual thinking process”, which in turn triggered greater indignation and more negative reputation assessment (Roh, 2017). At the same time, indignation and negative reputation were both significant predictors of online word-of-mouth intention (Roh, 2017). Therefore, it is necessary for the
organization to make a reasonable assessment of public opinion and sentiment when choosing a crisis response strategy.
Case studies about crisis communication also often use SCCT as theoretical
framework. Richard JR, Wilson, Boyle, & Mower (2017) studied the NFL's mishandling of Ray Rice controversy in 2014. In this article, researchers compared the NFL's crisis communication strategy with research-based models. Some of these strategies followed the model derived from the study, while others deviated from the results of the study.
This study demonstrates the consequences of a mismatch between the crisis strategy and the cognition of crisis responsibilities by assessing the degree to which the crisis response strategy and the NFL's perception of crisis responsibilities are matched. At the same time, the negative reputation and crisis history accumulated by the organization are also
emphasized in the research results.
3.1.3 Corporate crisis advertising (CCA)
Corporate crisis advertising is a marketing approach that profitable companies use to respond to crises. Research in the field of crisis management has proven that corporations should plan and formulate strategies proactively to prevent potential crises or minimize losses of an organization's assets (Ritchie, 2004, cited by Kim, 2013). Corporate
advertising can communicate information with public by the ability of creating a positive corporate image when a company encounters a crisis. It may also become a type of issue advertising or special key information which tries to restore a collapsing corporate image (Kim, 2013). Previous researchers have also proposed the concept of “inoculation effect”.
Organizations also try to minimize the impact of negative news by exposing an audience first to the news along with counter arguments before the negative news released in mass
media platforms (Easley et al., 1995, cited by Ho, Shin, & Pang, 2017). In Kim's study, researcher has developed a model of consumer evaluation about corporate advertising in a crisis. Corporate crisis advertising model focuses on three levels of relationship. The first is the impact of pre-crisis corporate advertising on consumers’ resistance to negative news, followed by consumer’s resistance to negative news, and finally the relationship between consumers’ resistance and consumers’ assessment of corporate crisis advertising (Kim, 2013). In addition, this study also attempts to explore the inoculation effect beyond consumer response toward negative news, and determines that the inoculation effect can further reduce consumers’ resistance to corporate advertising during the crisis. In addition to corporate advertising, there are many other external factors that affect the situation of corporate crisis, including the crisis, the corporation, the media, and individual
differences (Kim, 2013).
Ho et al. (2017) incorporates crisis advertising into the field of marketing advertising for discussion. Corporate advertising is not just used by companies for promotion.
Scholars have consistently advocated the integration of corporate communication strategies to protect the long-term reputation of the organization (Seeger, 2006, cited by Ho et al., 2017). On this basis, corporate advertising is used to routinely maintain the positive image of the company and can also be used to deal with scandals. Based on the study of corporate crisis advertising and inoculation effect by Kim (2013), Ho et al.
(2017) further developed the framework of Corporate crisis advertising (CCA).
Compared with SCCT’s attention to the effectiveness of crisis response strategies. CCA focuses more on message strategies in corporate advertising and the advertisements’
dependence effects before and after the crisis. CCA framework proposes that “corporate advertising issued before and after a crisis could have an interdependent effect on the overall effectiveness and persuasiveness of corporate advertisements” (Ho et al., 2017).
3.1.4 Other researches about crisis strategy
In addition to the above three classical and widely used theories, as well as the theory used in this study as a theoretical framework for analysis, this research also refers to a number of literature on crisis communication and crisis strategy research. Jaques (2007) discusses the relationship and definition of issue management and crisis management. In
this paper, the author establishes a non-linear relational construct of issue management and crisis management, and discusses the role of issue management in pre-crisis and post- crisis stages. Another study focuses on the role of emotions in the communication of the crisis. Because organizational crises are highly emotional experiences for both
organizations and stakeholders, when organizations encounter crises, the emotional communication between organizations and stakeholders deserves academic attention.
Coombs's theory has deeply studied the emotions of stakeholders, and then van der Meer
& Verhoeven (2014) studied the effects of the emotions communicated by organizations on corporate reputations. The researchers conclude that except for crisis response
strategies such as diminish strategy and rebuild strategy, the communicated emotion (i.e., shame and regret) has a positive impact on the company's reputation (van der Meer &
Verhoeven, 2014). The researchers' further analysis shows that the effect of the communicated emotion on corporate reputation can be explained by public negative emotions and cognitive responses. Therefore, when an organization responds to a crisis, releasing emotional signals in the crisis response can influence corporate reputation.
More effective ways to reduce the negative reputation of an organization include reducing stakeholders’ feelings of anger by emotions in the crisis response and by increasing the public acceptance of the organizational message (van der Meer &
Verhoeven, 2014).
Research on the crisis communication has not only been applied between
organizations and the public. Communication between the organization and its employees is also an important part of crisis communication theory. After the financial crisis in 2008, crisis communication within the organization became a hot topic. Mazzei &
Ravazzani (2015) launched a study of Italian companies. This study attempts to understand the internal crisis communication strategy of the company and the
characteristics of the internal crisis communication in Italian companies. The harmonious relationship between employees of an enterprise belongs to the organization's assets. If companies are not able to protect these intangible assets, they put themselves seriously at risk (Mazzei & Ravazzani, 2015). The results of the study show that Italian companies currently lack a reasonable and effective strategy for managing internal communications.
Therefore, employees lacked trust to others, and this problem has affected the company's
intangible assets. This research developed a model of the organization's internal crisis communication, which provided useful ideas for research in this field.
Within many organizational crisis response strategies, apologies are often considered to be the most effective strategy. SCCT indicates that when an organization needs to assume the primary responsibility for a crisis, apology strategy is the most desirable response for stakeholders. Lwin et al. (2016) conducted an in-depth study of the apology strategy, paying particular attention to how the stakeholders accept an apology from the organization. This article examines consumers’ responses to the types of apologies offered post crises against the levels of attribution of responsibility (Lwin et al., 2016).
The attribution of responsibility for the crisis has significantly affected consumer complaints about the organization and behaviors that damage the reputation of the organization. Moreover, when the apology of the organization is on a particularly high degree, the consumer's negative impression on the organization will not certainly be reduced, because such a high level of apology often means that the organization should have to assume a major responsibility for the crisis.
Chung & Lee studied the crisis communication strategies of a food company on social media by studying a case of Salmonella outbreak in the United States. This article divides the crisis strategies into a crisis response strategy and a technical translation strategy. Compared with the current crisis response strategy, a technical translation strategy is a form of risk communication that informs publics how to physically protect themselves from a hazard and reduces the uncertainty perception (Chung & Lee, 2016).
By online content analysis on social media, this study shows that a technical translation strategy generated more public acceptance of the message and more positive emotions than a crisis response strategy (Chung & Lee, 2016). The common crisis response strategy has caused the public to have more negative emotions. This research not only shows the potential of the technical translation strategy in responding to technical crisis, but also provides inspiration for my research methods. This study investigates public responses from both cognitive and affective aspects. This idea is also used in the coding process of my crisis communication research of Huawei.
3.2 Social media used in crisis communication
Whether it is the analysis of Image restoration theory or the exploration of Situation crisis communication theory, research always uses print and television as the medium of crisis communication. However, in the decade of social media’s rapid development, researchers have begun to explore how social media have become a platform for crisis
communication. The study found that when the crisis occurs, the public will browse online more often (Rainie, 2005, cited by Liu, Austin, & Jin, 2011). This has changed the model and thinking of the organization to deal with the crisis. Social media has also become one of the sources of information for journalists and may even become a place where the crisis directly broke out (Liu et al., 2011). My research refers to a number of researches that focus on the spread of crises on social media, and cites some theoretical models, such as the Social Media Crisis Communication model (SMCC).
3.2.1 Social-mediated crisis communication (SMCC) Model
The first social media crisis communication tool applied by practitioners at work is blog- mediated public relations. Jin & Liu (2010) first proposed a comprehensive and
reasonable approach that indicates how crisis managers should engage with the blogosphere. In the study, the researchers developed a blog-mediated crisis
communication model, highlighting the important role played by influential bloggers in the crisis. The authors pointed out that it is necessary for crisis managers to monitor the dynamics of powerful bloggers in real time (Jin & Liu, 2010) and develop appropriate crisis management strategies based on their influence. Liu et al. (2011) subsequently continued to develop the SMCC model. This model proposes that when the public uses social media, there are three main motivations: issue relevance, information
seeking/sharing, and emotional venting/support (Liu et al., 2011). SMCC model is divided into two parts: The first is how the sources and forms of the crisis affect the choice of the organization's response strategies, followed by a series of recommended response strategies for the crisis. The SMCC model analyzes the interactions between organizations that suffer crisis and three types of people: The first category is influential social media bloggers. The second category is these influential bloggers’ followers. The third category is people who are inactive on social media but have opportunity to obtain
these influential bloggers’ information offline. The study of Liu et al. (2011) selected 162 college students to conduct experiments, focusing on how the form and source of crisis information influence the public's acceptance of crisis response strategies. The results show that when an organization responds to a crisis, it is very necessary for the crisis strategy to match the appropriate form and source of crisis information. In addition, the selection of crisis information form and source effects publics’ attribution of independent and dependent emotions (Liu et al., 2011).
3.2.2 Crisis communication researches about social media
The role of social media in crisis communication is attracting the attention of many scholars. Schultz, Utz, & Göritz (2011) studied the importance of messages and information on social media in the crisis. The study compared the impact of the crisis response strategies organized on traditional media and social media to the recipients’
perceptions of reputation. The organization's crisis communication on social media is considered to be more effective to mitigate the negative impact of the crisis than the articles in traditional media. For a successful crisis operation process, it is important to respond to the social media users. For organizations, information strategy may be more useful than apologizing, especially when the crisis evolves into a secondary crisis. The organization's definition of the severity of the crisis also affects the organization’s choice of social media. Liu & Kim (2011) studied the use of social media and traditional media by 13 organizations during the 2009 H1N1 flu crisis through quantitative content
analysis. The study found that when an organization defines a crisis as a disaster or a large event, the organization prefers to use traditional media to respond to the crisis.
However, if the organization identifies the crisis as an ordinary event, the organization will use social media more. In addition, organizations will be more inclined to use traditional media to affect public sentiment.
Traditional crisis communication theory focuses on the relationship between crisis types and crisis communication strategies. However, in the era when social media playing the core role of crisis communication, the role of the media itself in crisis communication is often overlooked by SCCT and other theories. Utz, Schultz, & Glocka (2012)
conducted an online experimental study comparing the effects of media types and crisis
types. Regarding the type of crisis, the researchers selected the victim crisis and
intentional crisis in the SCCT. For media, the study chose Facebook, Twitter, and online newspaper for comparison. In studying the crisis communication of the Fukushima nuclear accident, the literature found that the influence of the media type is more significant than the type of crisis. Crisis communication via social media resulted in a higher reputation and less secondary crisis reactions such as boycotting the company than crisis communication in the newspaper (Utz et al., 2012). But since people tend to trust information on traditional media, secondary crisis communication is higher in newspaper condition than in social media conditions. Utz et al. (2012) also compares public anger.
Research has found that anger comes from a complex process. When the crisis is
classified as intentional crisis, the public will be angrier than the victim crisis. However, anger is also related to the reputation of the organization and secondary crisis
communication.
Chewning's (2015) study also emphasized the importance of online media in communication between organization and stakeholder. This article uses the BP oil spill accident as a case to deconstruct the crisis response measures of BP from the perspectives of organizations, media, and stakeholders. Research shows that both sources and media contribute to the narrative of the crisis, and that social media plays an important role in organizational crisis responses and crisis responses to stakeholders. In addition, the crisis response of stakeholders is also considered to be an important part of the crisis narrative (Chewning, 2015). Comments on these online media can themselves be considered part of the crisis. Therefore, the popularity of online media complicates the crisis response, and organizations need to consider the handling of the crisis from more levels.
Researchers also began to pay attention to the sources of information in the age of social media. Because social media lacks the “gatekeeper” role, assessing the credibility of information sources is also a new direction for crisis communication research. A comparative study was conducted by van Zoonen & van der Meer (2015), which compares the role of organizations and employees as informants in the crisis
communication. The researchers chose the Mercedes-Benz in Netherland as a case to compare the roles of the two kinds of informants through online questionnaires and quantitative analysis. Research shows that the judgement of organizational reputation
after the crisis depends not only on the crisis response strategy, but also on the information sources and its credibility (van Zoonen & van der Meer, 2015). For
organizations in crisis, it is important not only to use social media, but employees in the organization who are sources of online information. They can also have a positive impact on the reputation of the organization through their own credibility. Compared with the organization, especially when the rebuild strategy is adopted, employees are more effective than organizations in the crisis communication because the public has a higher assessment of the employees' content credibility. In the practice of crisis management, employees can assume more important responsibilities.
Bratu's (2016) study explores and describes the key role of social media in crisis communication from a management perspective. Managers must play their proper role in digital media in a timely manner, and should not let the information spread freely. This will cause information to deviate from the truth on social media. Therefore, social media as a tool for managers to communicate with the public is very important in dealing with the crisis. In more specific areas, such as health communication, social media as a crisis management tools for academic exploration is also in progress. Although in the business sector, social media has been used as a key tool for crisis communication by public relations practitioners, public health agencies, particularly non-profit organizations, are unfamiliar with the use of social media platforms as a communication platform for epidemic outbreaks. For this purpose, Guidry, Jin, Orr, Messner, & Meganck (2017) studied the use of Twitter and Instagram by three international health organizations during the Ebola outbreak. Research shows that Instagram can already serve as a platform for effective information delivery. And for WHO, social media messaging may be most effective when it is used by organizations that are familiar to the publics. It will also be effective when it is based on the strategic use of risk communication principles and acknowledgement of public fears and concerns (Guidry et al., 2017). This study fills the gap in the research of social media in the field of strategic health risk communication.
Focusing on the crisis communication of multinational corporations concerned by this research, Zhu, Anagondahalli, & Zhang (2017) provided an important help for my research by a case study on the spread of two multinational corporations in China. This article selected McDonald's and KFC as examples to understand the importance of
stakeholders participating in the social media crisis by investigating the subtle cultural differences in the crisis. Similar with the content highlighted by the SMCC model, the study found that influential social media users play an important role in the crisis. At the same time, the differences between Chinese culture and other cultures are also factors that must be taken into consideration when dealing with the crisis in China.
Another study on Chinese social media investigate how companies make use of social media communication to turn crises into opportunities. Wang (2016) used interpretive textual analysis and statistical analysis to analyze the crisis communication and competition of the two competitors on Weibo. In this interesting case, the
controversy over the right to use a famous trademark was transformed into an advertising campaign. The diminish strategy in SCCT model is performed as an “apology”. The research shows that the appropriate crisis communication strategy can be used to win public sympathy on China’s Weibo platform. The sympathy even turned the negative crisis into positive advertising. In addition to the company's crisis response strategy, the interaction strategy between companies and stakeholders can also effectively control the crisis. Ngai & Jin (2016) studied crisis communications on Weibo between the involved company and Chinese stakeholders during the air crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214.
The integrated use of accommodative and defensive communication strategies in the early stage of post-crisis communication prevented the escalation of the crisis (Ngai &
Jin, 2016).
3.3 Cross-cultural crisis communication research
Culture moderates the relationship between the level of organizational responsibility and the choice of response strategies (Coombs 2007b, cited by Zhu et al. 2017). However, this is not the only impact of the cultural context on the spread of the crisis. Adopting the same coping strategies for the same crisis in different cultural environments will not necessarily result in the same results, or even the opposite public response. But overall, functionalist and objectivist perspectives have dominated the field of crisis
communication (Falkheimer & Heide, 2006). Falkheimer and Heide conducted a critical analysis of crisis communication and cross-cultural public relations. This study
introduces ethnicity and collective cultural identity as an analysis of crisis
communication theory. Intercultural communication can be defined as the study of
“heterophilous interpersonal communication between individuals from different cultures”
(Rogers & Hart, 2002, cited by Falkheimer & Heide, 2006). When discussing cross- cultural communication issues, researchers often use the different dimensions of cultural variability to explain the similarities and differences between cultures. This includes the common dimension: individualism-collectivism, which is the biggest difference between Chinese culture and Western culture. Although the international community generally regards multiculturalism as universal values, but many companies and authorities have not recognized the importance of a close understanding of the public with which they wish to communicate and build relationships (Falkheimer & Heide, 2006). Public relations practitioners need to be more sensitive to the multicultural nuances of different publics, both in an international environment and within their own geographic locales (Kruckeberg, 1995, cited by Falkheimer & Heide, 2006). Therefore, the researchers made the following suggestions for multicultural crisis communication in the literature: (1) audience-orientation, which focuses sense-making, (2) a proactive and interactive approach, focusing dialogue, (3) a community-focused approach, which focuses a long- range pre-crisis perspective, and, (4) an ethnicity-approach towards intercultural communication (Falkheimer & Heide, 2006).
Williams & Olaniran (2002) studied a crisis involving ethnicity in Texas in 1998.
Previous research has pointed out that when a crisis involves a racial issue, the element of race will increase the volume of the volatility of the situation (Baker, 2001, cited by Williams & Olaniran, 2002). Attention of public and media will be more easily influenced and attracted by these factors. Hence, organizations need to think carefully about crisis response strategies to avoid secondary crises. The research case of this article proves that the rapid and unthinking crisis response strategy has attracted the attention of the whole country. However, clear recognizable is the need for crisis practitioners to be vigilant in management and image repair theory, aiming to keep a long-term positive organizational image (Williams & Olaniran, 2002).
A study in Latin countries explored the impact of Latin culture on the crisis through ground theory analysis and interviews with professionals. Fatima Oliveira (2013) found in the interview that the current definition of multiculturalism by public relations
practitioners is not clear enough. In addition, even if public relations practitioners have realized that cultural factors are critical elements of crisis management, they are still unwilling to respond to the challenges of a multicultural environment. Research shows that scholars and practitioners need to incorporate public expectations of culture into crisis management strategies. The crisis that multinational corporations encounter in their operations is also easily affected by cultural differences. Akcay & Bagcan (2016) studied the case of crisis in IKEA's cooperation with local furniture manufacturers in Turkey.
IKEA’s agents in Turkey adopted different strategies from the Swedish headquarters of IKEA during the crisis communication with the labor union. For the same labor dispute crisis, IKEA headquarters took a rebuild strategy and quickly gained the understanding of the union. The IKEA’s agents in Turkey have adopted the denial strategy. In the
comprehensive analysis of the author of the article, IKEA's global values are considered to play a decisive role in tactical choices when dealing with crises.
In general, cross-cultural crisis communication has been concerned by scholars, but there are still many problems in the research. Dier-Lawson (2017) pointed out the
research direction of this field in the future in the summary of cross-cultural crisis-related studies over the years: (1) representing different cultural perspectives in crisis
communication research, (2) placing American crisis research in a global context, and (3) developing cross-cultural comparisons.
3.4 Review of crisis communication research
In this study, I selected 40 peer-reviewed literatures related to crisis communication from 1997 to 2017. In these 40 documents, I conducted an analysis based on the research topics, theoretical framework, and research methods, to understand the current
development and trends of existing research about crisis communication. Based on the preliminary induction, the research topics of the 40 articles were divided into the following categories: (1) Crisis communication theory. (2) Social media crisis communication. (3) Multicultural/Intercultural crisis communication. The theoretical framework used in these studies was It is broadly divided into the following categories:
(1) Image Restoration Theory (IRT). (2) Situation Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT). (3) Corporate Crisis Advertising (CCA). (4) Social-Mediated Crisis
Communication (SMCC). (5) Others. Finally, these research methods are divided into the following categories: (1) Between-subject experiment. (2) Quantitative content analysis.
(3) Qualitative approach (rhetoric analysis, questionnaire, interview, etc.). (4) Meta- analysis. (5) Other methods. The total number of statistical documents is 40 (N = 40).
Since some studies have adopted multiple theories at in one article as the theoretical framework, and some studies have adopted the two or more research methods listed above, the total number of classification statistics may not be 40.
Figure 3.1 Statistic of research topics of this literature review
Due to timeliness of this research, most of the documents selected in this study were published in the last five years. Figure 3.1 shows the distribution of research topics over time in the 40 articles of this study. In general, most of the documents were published after 2010. Because social media technology is developing with each passing day, academic research on social media has also kept pace with the rapid development of technology. The study of the social media crisis communication in the literature has been generally increasing since 2010. After 2015, a large part of the research is using social media as a crisis management platform. Research on crisis communication theory continues to increase after 2012 because public relations practitioners have realized the importance of crisis management. Compared with the study of crisis communication theory, the study of multicultural crisis communication has not changed much with time.
There is relatively little research in this field in academia, so my research has the potential to make some contributions to this field.
Figure 3.2 Statistic of theories of this literature review
Figure 3.2 shows the choice of 40 documents selected for the study as a theoretical framework for crisis communication. Image crisis theory (IRT) proposed by Benoit (1995) and Situation crisis communication theory (SCCT) created by Coombs (2007a) are generally considered as two basic theories of crisis communication by researches in nearly 20 years. In addition, the CCA model and SMCC model for social media and corporate marketing are also cited by some articles. However, in general, SCCT is the most frequently used theoretical model for various researches in the past decade, and it has also had a profound impact on the study of crisis communication in the era of social media.
Figure 3.3 Statistic of research methods of this literature review
Figure 3.3 shows the methods used in these studies. As the above figure, researchers generally prefer to use the between-subject experiment as a method to test the
relationship between multiple sets of variables. Among the 40 references selected in this study, between-subject experiments are usually used to study the relationship among crisis communication strategies, organizational reputation, crisis response effect and other variables. In addition to such quantitative experimental methods, traditional content analysis and qualitative analysis are also widely used. Among them, content analysis is often used to conduct specific case studies, and qualitative analysis is often used to develop and consolidate original new theories.
3.5 Research on Chinese technology enterprises represented by Huawei
With the rapid development of Chinese economy, a group of Chinese companies have begun to move toward multinational corporations in recent years. China's special political, economic and cultural environment has a great influence on organizational behavior and corporate culture. Hawes & Chow (2011) took Huawei and Haier as examples to study the efforts of Chinese multinational corporations to create corporate culture, and emphasized the role of corporate leaders in the reform of corporate cultural concepts among employees. At the same time, the literature also pointed out that the cultural management methods of these companies will also have a negative impact on their way of becoming truly international companies. On the technical level, researchers are also watching the rapid progress of emerging multinational technology companies in China, exemplified by Huawei. From the perspective of Absorptive Capacity (ACAP), Liu & Zheng (2013) explain that technology companies in emerging economies use imitation to achieve technological catch-up for market leaders. Huawei's growth and development process is the popular process by which emerging technology companies continue to absorb technologies from industry leaders. The researchers divided the development process of Huawei's technology into three stages: the first stage was before 1995, when Huawei imitated the PBX series, and then transformed to a firm with
independent research and development capacity. The second stage was in recent years.
Huawei developed 3G and 4G technologies and entered the international market, while
becoming a multinational ICT equipment supplier. The third stage is the goal that Huawei is currently trying to achieve, namely to become an industry leader through LTE
technology and cloud-computing technology (Liu & Zheng, 2013). In addition to the absorptive capacity to competitors, Huawei also adopts data mining technology on its own products to obtain consumer feedback (Zhang, Rao, & Feng, 2018).
As a multinational technology company, internationalization is a process that Huawei must go through. Micheli & Carrillo (2016) studied the internationalization of Huawei in Mexico, as an example of the new phase of internationalization coming from emerging countries and productive sectors in the global economy. The initial internationalization of Huawei started in developing countries. Its strategy consists of establishing its brand in a country, winning the confidence of its clients by innovation, lower costs, and greater delivery speed, as well as a sincere commitment to its customers (Micheli & Carrillo, 2016). The localization process of Huawei implemented in Mexico is an important form of development of multinational corporations in Mexico, which generates novel
organizational structures and business models. For Huawei, the key element for entering the developing country market is innovation and customization. Another research is about Huawei in Malaysia. The study also revealed the elements of localization of Chinese multinational technology companies: product, workforce, technology, organization and management (Li & Cheong, 2017). In addition, the study also pointed out that the
company characteristics, enterprise ownership and leadership style of enterprise's founder are also important factors which affect differential pace of firms’ internationalization and localization (Li & Cheong, 2017). However, research about Huawei in the field of
business and technology has currently not been close to the topic of localization and internationalization of the PR. Therefore, my research in this paper has the value of connecting strategic communication field and enterprise management field.
4. Theoretical Framework
In this section, this article will introduce the theory used as a framework in this study in detail, and will outline the general framework of this study. First, this paper adopts the three-stage crisis model as the analysis framework of Huawei's crises. Second, this article will synthesize the development of Coombs in several articles, and summarize the
